I am a Senior Political Contributor at Forbes and the official 'token lefty,' as the title of the page suggests. However, writing from the 'left of center' should not be confused with writing for the left as I often annoy progressives just as much as I upset conservative thinkers. In addition to the pages of Forbes.com, you can find me every Saturday morning on your TV arguing with my more conservative colleagues on "Forbes on Fox" on the Fox News Network and at various other times during the week serving as a liberal talking head on other Fox News and Fox Business Network shows. I also serve as a Democratic strategist with Mercury Public Affairs.

The failure of the House of Representatives to take the vote necessary to get badly needed relief to New York and New Jersey residents suffering the ravages of superstorm Sandy produced a reaction nearly as violent as the storm itself.

Governor of New Jersey at a town hall in Hillsborough, NJ 3/2/11 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As Northeastern Democrats and Republicans lined up to bash Speaker John Boehner’s insensitivity to the suffering of his fellow, storm battered Americans—not to mention a thorough tongue lashing from New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie, delivered as only Chris Christie can do— Republicans from other parts of the nation rose to the defense of the beleaguered Speaker, pointing out that Boehner was correct to not ask House Republicans to support a Senate bill so laden with pork as to cause even the most moderate House Republican to adopt a kosher diet.

However, as it turns out, the pork portions of the Senate bill were not earmarked to benefit Democratic members of the upper chamber of Congress. And you may be quite surprised to discover where that money is actually headed once the rich Senate legislation is passed by the House.

A review of the mark-up of the Senate bill reveals that all that extra, non-Sandy related cash is actually set to provide billions for “storm events that occurred in 2012 along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast within the boundaries of the North Atlantic and Mississippi Valley divisions of the Corps that were affected by Hurricanes Sandy and Isaac.”

Here’s the mark-up:

Why, you might ask, would the Senate be packing billions of taxpayer dollars for these areas of the country that are nowhere near the devastation brought about by superstorm Sandy into a bill designed to bring relief to those suffering from the storm that ripped the northeastern part of the nation?

The answer can be found in a quick review of the states that are set to benefit from the Senate’s extra-special benevolence—states including Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana.

What, you may ask, do these states far from New York and New Jersey have in common?

Each is not only a red state, but each of these states are represented by two Republican senators—with the exception of Louisiana with its one GOP senator.

And what happens when you buy off seven Republican senators with a package of goodies under the guise of storm relief supposedly meant to benefit two blue states?

You get yourself a filibuster proof piece of legislation.

Coincidence? Not at all. We know this because Harry Reid told us so in press conference held on December 20, a time when everyone’s attention was so glued to the fiscal cliff drama that any talk of any other bills was completely lost in the wind.

Here’s what Majority Leader Reid had to say:

“We have other important things to do here in the Senate. We have — we’re going on almost two months now without giving relief to the northeast who were struck by that violent storm, Sandy. 700,000 or 800,000 homes destroyed in New Jersey and New York alone. When Irene struck, we acted very quickly. We didn’t wait and say, well let’s see, Alabama has two Republican senators, Mississippi has two Republican senators, Texas has two Republican senators, Louisiana has one Republican senator,”

While it would appear that Reid figured out—all on his own—that adding in these pork benefits for his Republican colleagues would insure passage of the relief bill without requiring the need to devote endless hours heading off yet another GOP filibuster effort, it is clear that these GOP senators—each and every one of them a supposed mortal enemy of unnecessary government spending—did not rush to request that the money be removed from the bill so as to save the nation a few billion bucks.

Apparently, these deficit hawks only spread their wings when they are flying in full public view.But when nobody is looking?

Let the pork flow.

Can you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e?

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What about all the other pork you did not mention..$58.8 million for forest restoration on private land. $197 million “to… protect coastal ecosystems and habitat impacted by Hurricane Sandy.” $10.78 billion for public transportation, most of which is allocated to future construction and improvements, not disaster relief. $17 billion for wasteful Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), a program that has become notorious for its use as a backdoor earmark program. Or, $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries. Plus there are others. Are you trying to say these were earmarked just for just the GOP senators too??? From what I read only 1/3 was for relief and 2/3 was pork. I call it responsible to not vote for that kind of “relief” deal.

Seriously? This is what you took from this article? Ok – let’s do it your way. The $197 is connected to Sandy damage. You may not like spending on on things that sound too ecological for you, but it aint’ pork when it is an expenditure resulting from a storm. The $10.78 bilion is absolutely all about helping the states pay for the big time bills incurred getting the subway system running again etc. THose are just some examples. Of course, there is other pork in the bill. The difference is that it was billions of dollars being used as a payoff to Republican senators who decry such behavior in public and then take the money so that they won’t filibuster a critically needed bill. That was the point of this article. If you are so married to defending your team that this escapes you, I would respectfully suggest that you’ve come to the wrong place. Objectivity is required here- and that goes for progressives as much as conservatives.

Rick: Explain this. Politics is steeped in hypocrisy. I think everyone knows that now. But explain why the taxpayers in the Red States shouldn’t be entitled to some of the funds because Sandy did damage in most of those states too.

Also, you left out one little tid bit that lessens all hypocrisy.

This is a common practice with all bills.

If you want everyone to stop the hypocrisy then let’s see you do a good write up about how Democrats who hate the military and make such public histrionics about cutting the Defense budget also go behind the scenes and make sure their states get a huge piece of the pie.

That’s even more hypocritical because it takes money away from VA hospitals which would actually help the troops.

In the meantime I want to thank you for being concerned. Congress is one corrupt vessel and when it sinks we will all drown.

1. Not only are you completely wrong when you suggest that Sandy did damage in Alabama, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, if you took the trouble to actually read the mark up of the bill I provided, you would clearly see you are wrong as the bill expressly references that the money was for other storms affecting those states!

2. If it makes you feel better that this practice goes on in other bills because you are so anxious to defend the home team, knock yourself out. I promise you that nothing can change when you’re so interested in protecting your party that you can’t acknowledge a problem when you see it. I write about Democratic hypocrisy all the time. Unlike yourself, I feel no need to defend anyone- I just want the BS to end.

Well good for you Rick. You’re a crusader and I’m happy for you. However, I’m simply pointing out the fact that it goes on all time and on both sides.

How was that defending the home team? I don’t have a team and I call out corruption wherever I observe it.

You’re missing the real corruption here and that is that those who didn’t pay for flood insurance are now getting a bail out. That’s beyond hypocrisy. And, according to you, they are all in blue states.

And I never suggested that it doesn’t go on all the time. And, again, when I want to write an article about flood insurance then I can look at that. That isn’t what this article is about. Had your original comment been to suggest that you would like to see an article about flood insurance that would be one thing -but you cannot make unsubstantiated charges, get called out on them and then wiggle out by attempting to change the subject. Readers here are pretty smart and they’ll never let you get away with it.

I will add this for you as you obviously don’t know much about flood insurance. I happen to know a bit about it having owned houses in areas where you cannot get flood insurance. Government flood insurance is only made available to people with homes where flood insurance is NOT available from insurance companies for the simple reason that the houses are in flood zones! That is why the government program exists – to make coverage available for people who cannot buy it in the private markets. It is not a government give away! These people purchased this coverage from the government-and it ain’t cheap. The bill that will be voted on by Congress on Friday is putting funds into the account to pay off the claims of those who bought a gov’t offered policy! I have similar insurance at a house in California for earthquakes because the house is in a zone that the private markets won’t touch. The government makes it available- not for free by the way and not inexpensive. Sorry, but you do a lot of complaining without knowing much about what you are talking about.

On this subject you are completely wrong. Here’s an article that indicates that houses that were flooded will be given low cost loans to rebuild. However, it isn’t clear that will apply in all cases.

As far as your comment about flood insurance several articles identified people who could have obtained it but chose not to obtain it. Here’s an article from the Huffington Post which shows clearly that many could have obtained it but didn’t. I’m not trying to insult you Rick but facts are facts: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/flood-insurance-in-northeast_n_2045031.html Many homeowners who suffered losses because of flooding from Hurricane Sandy are likely to find themselves out of luck. Standard homeowners policies don’t cover flooding damage, and the vast majority of homeowners don’t have flood insurance.

Yet it’s likely that many Northeasterners will purchase it in coming months, hoping they’ll be covered the next time around, at a cost averaging around $600 a year.

That’s what happened after Hurricane Irene triggered flooding across 13 Eastern states in August 2011. An annual survey by the insurance industry found that flood coverage in the Northeast rose to 14 percent of homeowners in May from 5 percent before Irene hit.

The head of the industry’s Insurance Information Institute attributes the jump to Irene, which hit many inland areas where flooding is historically uncommon.

“Nothing sells flood insurance like a flood,” says Robert Hartwig, the organization’s president. “There will be many people in parts of the Northeast this week who will be very happy that they spent a few hundred dollars to buy flood insurance this year.”

Wow..you must really think we are stupid. The article you cite NEVER suggests that people who chose not to buy insurance will be getting money from the government to pay their damages! Do you think we won’t actually read the article? Amazingly, you actually contradict your own statement by quoting the article when you write “Many homeowners who suffered losses because of flooding from Hurricane Sandy are likely to find themselves out of luck. Standard homeowners policies don’t cover flooding damage, and the vast majority of homeowners don’t have flood insurance.” As a rule, if you are going to try and BS us, you probably don’t want to call out your own BS by printing proof of the opposite!!!

The insurance that the article is referencing that will be purchased in the coming months is government insurance purchased by people in flood zones! But that doesn’t mean they were getting claims paid off from Sandy if they didn’t already have it which is what you initially claimed was the real issue here!

I get that following the thread of an argument may not be your thing but I will repeat, people here are awfully smart and can easily see when someone tries to change the argument because they’ve been found out. At least, if you are going to do this, base it in fact. And if you are going to do this, you might want to properly relay the articles you cite to support your position and avoid taking pieces from that article that directly contradicts your point!

I’m sorry, but you are taking up way too much of my time writing silly stuff. If you want to comment again, please do-but no response will be forthcoming. I will simply warn readers to check out whatever you might have to say because so far you have said absolutely nothing that is true and based in fact. I suspect that now you are just trying to save a little fact in the discussion which is fine. But you better do it with facts, not bull.

Low interest loans are a COMPLETELY different matter-and they are LOANS-not government handouts. If you’re entirely specious argument comes down to your believing that people who have been wiped out in storms should have to pay full interest on government loans, fine—but you sure wasted a lot of time to get there. I also think you will convince a total of nobody that this is some example of horrible government corruption.

I apologize Rick. For some reason the link was not included. I wasn’t trying to deceive you but can I point something out and I don’t mean to insult you as you are trying to insult me. You could have just as easily looked it up. By the way, I agree with your original contention about the Red States/Blue States hypocrisy. You have the facts there and I’m not disputing it. All I’m pointing out is that there is more than enough hypocrisy to go around. By the way there are 220,000 uninsured homeowners mentioned in this article. I’m sure that’s a drop in the bucket. Here’s the article that was cut off and there are hundreds of them:

Article link at end. Homeowners in low-lying areas across the city have found themselves in the same situation. They’re turning to the feds in droves after their insurers won’t pay up. About 220,000 homeowners in New York City and Long Island have registered for emergency housing cash from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA has approved $557 million for homeowners. Some of the money is for temporary rent payments, but much of it is for emergency home repairs not covered by insurance. The insurance gap is an emerging issue along Savoie’s hard-hit stretch of Shore Front Parkway. The Oct. 29 Sandy surge busted up the boardwalk across the street, breaking it into thousands of wooden projectiles headed straight for their homes. A huge chunk of boardwalk slammed into Savoie’s three-story home. One long plank burst through her wall like a spear into a first-floor bedroom. The resulting hole allowed the Atlantic to bash its way in, tearing out walls and dragging in tons of beach sa